Big news. By now, you know that Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot will be moving over to Broadsword Online Games. EA will still be managing the payment through EA’s Origin portal. For UO, this is arguably one of the biggest changes to occur in its history.

I like theatrics as much as anybody, but I’m very serious when I say this will decide whether UO makes it to its 20th Anniversary, even as we look ahead at the 17th later this year. With that said, I think UO stands a better chance at making it to 20 now, than it did two months ago.

Radical Moves
This is a pretty radical move for EA – normally they do not allow other companies to take over their games/IP in this manner. Sure, companies allow other companies to manage their IP for regionalization/localization efforts, but this is neither of those things. For EA to turn over its two longest-running MMORPGs to a third party is not something that happened lightly, especially since one of those MMORPGs is the longest-running mainstream MMORPG in the industry. Many of us were surprised by how radical of a move this is, but we weren’t surprised that a radical move was made. The DAOC Producer’s Letter hinted that DAOC’s future was in doubt. UO has seen key layoffs in recent years, as well as other changes.

DAOC and UO – Home at Last?
In theory, DAOC and UO have a home where they are now fully welcomed and embraced. EA has always had a problem with MMORPGs (the long-term success of Star Wars: The Old Republic remains to be seen). You can go back to games like Motor City Online, Sims Online, and to the various cancellations that never saw a store shelf. MMORPGs just don’t fit in the normal EA corporate culture, and it always felt like EA as a business did not understand MMORPGs, or it wanted its MMORPGs to be on the scale of World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. Broadsword makes it clear on their About Page that they are focused on UO and DAOC.

Additional Resources
I think we will see new hires (or re-hires as it is). Over the past few years, we’ve seen the UO team downsized multiple times. That is hopefully changing. DAOC has already seen at least one addition to their team (a community lead).

Modernization
Because of the emphasis on modernization in the DAOC letter, I believe that UO will finally receive its high-resolution artwork/client update. Broadsword/Rob Denton are not taking these games on just to let them languish/die there. If this was about maintaining the status quo, the games stay at EA, and EA eventually closes them.

New Players
There will be a focus on bringing in new players for both games. Let’s face it, if the games were doing really well and bringing in plenty of new/returning players, they wouldn’t have been moved over. Hence the talk of “modernization” within the DAOC letter.

The Letters
I want to end this by pointing out a few areas of the Producer’s Letters. While the letters for Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot concerning their move to Broadsword Online Games are similar in many ways, the DAOC letter is much more blunt:

In recent months, Mythic’s leadership began discussing the question of Camelot’s future. Councils were convened, options were discussed – and finally, a decision was made regarding the best possible future for Dark Age of Camelot.

The letter goes on to state:

Going forward, we hope to bring about some exciting new changes, improved Customer Support, and increased correspondence with the DAoC community.

Broadsword’s dedicated team will also work to modernize and improve existing DAoC content, complete long-awaited improvements to The Camelot Herald, and establish compelling new features for Dark Age of Camelot, both in-game and out.

….You will see some new names, or possibly names you know quite well taking a role in the development of Dark Age of Camelot going forward.

DaoC’s transition to Broadsword will certainly have a positive effect on our future plans. With increased bandwidth and resources we will work toward modernizing some of the game’s features and developing a tangible marketing plan to attract more players, both new and returning.

UO’s letter kind of mentions a similar sentiment:

Yes! Broadsword’s additional investment into UO gives us the freedom to expand our resources for bigger projects, so again – the future has never looked so bright!

That leaves us with several major questions, which will be asked in another article.

I think this is a good move. I know that it gives UO a chance at making it to 20 years, something that I don’t believe it had a few months ago (or at least before the move). I hope that UO does not get pushed to the side in favor of DAOC, and I hope that UO does not get mired in the EA trap of just trying to keep it going and keep the vet players happy and hope that new players wander in.

Comments, questions? Leave a comment below, or email me – uo at ultimacodex.com